Boy, 8, will not face charges in shooting of sister

The 8-year-old Hayesville boy who police said shot his 4-year-old sister will not be charged, according to the Ashland County Prosecutor’s Office.

“(He’s) too young to understand,” said Ashland County Prosecutor Christopher Tunnell. Instead, Tunnell said the boy’s “situation” would be addressed through a case plan with the Job and Family Services.

The boy’s mother, Alyssa Edwards, was charged with two counts of child endangering on Monday, one a third-degree felony and the other a first-degree misdemeanor. She is set to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday via video conference from the Ashland County Jail, where she is being held on $30,000 bond.

Edwards is accused of returning to work at an area horse farm Saturday after being notified of the shooting and checking the girl’s injuries instead of calling either 911 or taking her daughter to the hospital, according to prosecutors. She had left the two children at her Hayesville home alone, during which time the boy shot his sister four times with a .22-caliber rifle, police said.

When Edwards returned home a second time an hour later, she took the girl to University Hospital Samaritan Medical Center, where medical personnel called police.

Tunnell said Monday that Edwards did not have a criminal history. Area court dockets do turn up empty, except for a divorce case from Edwards’ first husband and father of the 8-year-old boy, according to the Wayne County Common Pleas Court docket. The father of the boy died in an accident in 2016.

After his father’s death, the boy’s grandparents requested visitation rights, according to court records, which was ultimately granted on Jan. 10, 2018.

Edwards grew up in the Shreve area.

The 4-year-old girl is reported in stable condition in Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland, according to the Ashland County Sheriff’s Office. The boy is in the custody of Job and Family Services.

— Dylan Sams can be reached at 419-281-0581, ext. 240, and dsams@times-gazette.com. Follow him on Twitter @dylan__sams.

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